


Inevitability is a poison best served cold.

by kodamakuroo



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst, Blood and Gore, Character Death, Flowers, Gen, Graphic Description, Hanahaki Disease, Hurt, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:48:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25268644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kodamakuroo/pseuds/kodamakuroo
Summary: TAEYONG WASN'T USED TO FEELING PAIN.He wasn't built to endure burning aches and rough winds, he was moulded from iridescent pearls and angel-crafted twine. Taeyong didn't know pain, nor did he know how to inflict it.And when at the start of his junior year in college and a dull throb blossoms deep within his chest, Taeyong feels as though he can't breathe. Unlike the breathless he gets when Johnny enters a room, no, instead it's as though something volatile is squeezing, hard, unrelenting claws poking holes at his lungs. He doesn't know what it means at first, until daisy's begin sputtering from his lips and Taeyong can't help but choke.It's a twisted reality, looking in the mirror and watching as cheeks hollow and phantom thorns swirl in delicately woven patterns across a barren chest. Taeyong wasn't strong. His bones too fragile and wasted, it was one thing to be delicate but it was another to be brittle. It festered. It was getting heavier everyday, each weighing his lithe body lower towards the ground in which he was meant to be cemented to.Boys like Taeyong were never fated to love — especially to boys like Johnny Suh.
Relationships: Lee Taeyong/Suh Youngho | Johnny
Comments: 4
Kudos: 34





	Inevitability is a poison best served cold.

Taeyong supposes that inevitability has always been something he's afraid of — or at least worried about. It was easy to accept the inevitability of growing up or moving on from an ex, but naturally accepting the inevitability of your premature death is similar to that of attempting to swallow a box of jagged rocks.

Taeyong wasn't sure what scared him the most about his death; whether he's scared of what comes after, if anything comes after, or the guttural grief he'll put everyone who loves him through. He often thinks it's so heartbreakingly unfair — whilst he feels the weight in his chest, skin peeling and piling at the base of his lungs, every other breathing soul is living — Taeyong often wonders if he's even breathing at all anymore. What if it's all an illusion — what if he died a long time ago and the stems at the root of his organs have twisted around his malleable cortex and weaved their poisonous tentacles into the crevices of his skull, controlling and forcing him to carry on until whatever higher power is in charge of his fateful demise deems him too useless to carry on.<

When crimson sputters from his cold mouth, the petals and stalks rimming the basin are hard to distinguish from his own vomit. They're intertwined and deadly and snagged at the edges and they're indistinguishable. Almost as though the earth is squeezing until every ounce of his-self is all but being flushed away in a swirl of lavender and bleach.

The roots that have settled into the homely space in his body fester — it's inevitable — it always has been. But he supposes all of the lightheadedness and vision blurring and lungs burning from inside out is okay; it's all okay because his sick (sick) brain makes it seem as though his heart is almost one with his soul again. The tears having dried up in their hollow ducts because it's so not cool to cry over a pretty little brunet with pieces of his heart stuck between their teeth. His fate is sealed and there's that word again — inevitable.

Inevitable can be a beautiful word — in his head, it's inevitable that Johnny will finally love him. In his head, they're in love. Taeyong can't help but create symphonies upon symphonies that resist being forgotten — maybe that's why his demise accelerated the way it did. The pitiful seed of hope struggling to see sunlight and fighting off waterings but still living and gasping for air. Taeyong, if he was stronger, would've pushed and pushed — jostle his fragile heart in favour of burying the dreams awfully deep. But he's not strong — instead he allows them to grow, similar to the same colours grown into his oesophagus. Sometimes he thinks there are flowers blooming through the ridges of his ears; begonia, crocus, irises — sometimes he thinks it's inevitable not to wish for death. As beautiful as the translucent image is, it's dangerous.

The proclivity of his persistence to carry on leaves him insensate and unable to liaise. Instead it's too painful — acting like nothing is wrong — continuously shrouding away from the screams to help him. The words instead crawling up his white walls and morphing into ghastly puppet shows — stringing his body onto wooden pegs and tossing him around like the poor porcelain doll he is. In his head, they're in love — so achingly in love love love, that their hands ring and stroke and caress the whites of his hair — only slightly begging that the other doesn't notice his very soul pushing through the seems of his skin. He doesn't know what hurts more, the inevitability that this will never happen or the inevitability that it never would've happened in any realm or universe the heavens coughed up.

Water submerging hollowed bones, marrow simmering beneath pale skin and trying to soak up any light the sun brings through the damp window. Humidity is striking the air and stress infected dreams plague the back of his head, hands trying to brush their fingertips over the ripples in the reddening liquid. His joints aching and roaring — like sharpened needles in critical veins. Cephalic, basilic, nausea induced sweat. Perturbedly avoiding the artery. It's an eerily calming image, his head hitting the slick edge of the tub, arms curling around himself in a final attempt of comfort. He tries to count how many rings his phone emits. Seven, he counts. No doubt Doyoung. The inevitability of his eyelids slipping closed creeping up behind him, the nape of his neck acutely aware of the cold rush of breath tickling the cropped hairs.

Rigid limbs shiver over top of water, back shuddering with drawn out breaths — Taeyong isn't sure if the pink in front of his blackening vision is that of soaked earth or chunks of his own lungs. He supposes it doesn't really matter anymore. He was hammered into this coffin with nothing but his own haggard breaths and bleeding joints. His own crystal coffin in his own dirtied water, spine sticking out of his naked back and tears clogging up his throat. 

Maybe if, in one final attempt of peace, he can convince himself that this is deserved — this is supposed to happen — Johnny will, in reality, be so much happier without him — he can let out the air he's craving to relieve because he knows that the peril and torture is going to be worth it because Johnny is going to live happily ever after with some girl and Taeyong is going to be sent to the heavens to rejoice and cheer. But like every other dream he's ever had, it's inevitable that his downfall will hurt more people than he'll know.

And that's when he knows he hates the word. All the excuses and perilous whispers were to protect everyone from the truth and protect their fragile hearts and reinforce their ribs with steel so their heart has no choice but to keep beating and not wilt like he knew they would otherwise. All his hard work rendered inconsequential and pitiful — he's pitiful for thinking he could escape so easily and freely.

Slick sweat had began soaking his brow and the hushed whimpers quivered from his translucent lips, tinged blue with depression and death's premature kiss. His neck met the cool surface of the water as his chest screamed and burned, prickling beads of delicate petals circled his head like a halo — it could've been beautiful. A moment signifying a heaven crafted angel returning back home but the massacre of crimson tarnished any purity long ago. The fungi marring his joints sent blisters up his porcelain skin and Taeyong grimaced at the flares of pain that electrocuted his nerves as they slowly became submerged in the bathwater.

He knows it's coming, his dizzying vision and cloying headache are only trivial signs — his lungs feel alight and shredded, each cough releasing a morbid concoction of spit, stems, petals and torn skin. The phone is still ringing. If he was strong, strong like Doyoung or Yuta or Ten he would've fought — fought to reassure his best friend one last time, and if not who he thought it was, at least assure them that he'll be okay. But he was a weak man and an even weaker boy — he couldn't muster the mental strength to do anything but allow himself to slip away.

It's inevitable isn't it. A fate carved in stone at the dawn of the universe; written that a boy who spoke in only feather-light touches and water lilies, eyes lit with synthetic skies and messy watercolour — whose mere purpose in life was to pluck smiles from his own lips and press them to others faces — grinning all while holding their cheeks and rubbing soothing circles under eyes leaving patterns of jade and ivory. That same boy would fall, oh so gracefully, lithe body left crumpled at the base of his own organ, those feather touches now cemented to the ground and each frenzied tug staining his wrists in smatters of roseate blood and black decay — all because the gift he was given, love, ruled over the boy like a looming planet. Maybe Venus was jealous — and twisted his lungs in hoops anticipating the clogged sputters and rejoiced when he began to cave. All this anguish just for using his gift and loving like no one has loved before — the Gods angry and distraught that a mortal is able to allow themselves to be so naked and vulnerable and selfless. Maybe the Gods knew of what he'd become and tugged his heart towards someone he couldn't have, as some sort of childlike game, poking and prodding him closer to the cliff — patiently anticipating the moment he gets a little too close and slips.

And then he does slip.

White hair plastered to his forehead, and body quivering as the heat begins to leave the pool — hands neatly tucked beneath his armpits and lips tilted in a sorry excuse for a smile. He wasn't sure who was going to find him, if anyone was going to find him — but the phone was still ringing — a shrill sound imprinted in the back of his mind — he knew they'd come. He just hopes they're not angry with him. All he ever wanted to do was love, and maybe have the luck to be loved back.

The phone was still ringing.

Taeyong lets himself fall; the embrace wasn't as cold as he thought it'd be.

Maybe that was inevitable too.

**Author's Note:**

> heya!! this is my first ever piece of writing on ao3 and it's a sad one,, this is shorter than i wanted it to initially but i'm happy with the outcome (ღ˘⌣˘ღ) enjoy <33


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